Students welcome 1st paperless classroom

'Our kids are excited about technology'

(CTV.CA) — Teachers at a Nova Scotia middle school hope their students can ditch the pencils and books, but keep on learning. The secret? Trading paper notepads for computerized netbooks.

Junior high school teachers Todd Symes and Shawn Kirk came up with the idea when they were taking an online course approximately two years ago.

After consulting with the school board — and wrangling a combination of grants, scholarships and donations — they’ve since been able to purchase just shy of 20 computers. That’s just enough for their grade 8 and 9 students at Chester Area Middle School to partner up and get to work.

“Our kids are excited abut technology and we wanted to make sure the kids were going to be more engaged,” Kirk said of his eighth grade students.